


see how high she flies

by Missy



Category: American Horror Story, American Horror Story: Coven
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Backstory, Character Study, Fix-It, Flashbacks, Gen, Gore, Murder, Revenge, Witchcraft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-24
Updated: 2014-12-24
Packaged: 2018-03-03 05:52:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2840366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy/pseuds/Missy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Madison manages to turn the tables on Kyle.</p>
            </blockquote>





	see how high she flies

**Author's Note:**

  * For [perfectlystill](https://archiveofourown.org/users/perfectlystill/gifts).



> Hi perfectlystill - I hope you like this treat! As per your request I was very careful to avoid going into a noncon territory, so the scene begins just as Kyle lunges for Madison during their final scene together as the Seven Wonders take place downstairs.
> 
> As is typical of AHS, there is some gore in this fic.

When they ask her about it later, she’ll tell them she doesn’t know how she did it. The effort had seemed superhuman; she was sure she’d end up dead again. There had been flashing lights pinpricking in the corners of her eyes, bright pops of white that had reminded her of photographer’s flashbulbs. Some part of her wished that she’d stayed on the set – had confided her tricks to those who had harmed her through the studio system. She remembered being six, shoved onto the set of her first commercial, smiling into the convex lens as she showed off the back of her bandaged hand. She’d handled so much in her brief life – no wonder the booze and drugs had entered from stage right to make her life more difficult. Her parents had tried to combat Hollywood with religion, which had gotten them as far as every other child star has-been in the world. 

Reality returned in a hideous flash of red with the look in Kyle’s eyes as he lunged toward her, and Madison groped desperately along the wall in pursuit of something that might free her. Somehow she found it – something smooth, heavy and thick, something solid enough to render any man unconscious.

It was a broomstick. 

A fucking broomstick. Who the fuck had left that there? Had Zoe been riding it for practice? It wasn’t the only thing she’d been busy riding, Madison thought bitterly, before cracking the Kyle-monster over the head a few times with the tool. 

She didn’t stop until she saw red, until she felt the bones in his skull crater and splinter under her strength. When she felt him shake in her grip, when she knew she’d destroyed him – the monster she’d made, the Frankenstein she’d created as a favor to Zoe. And Zoe wasn’t going to get any more favors out of Madison.

Absurdly, she thought for a moment about Misty Day as she completed that gruesome task, about how she wouldn’t be riding to Kyle’s rescue anymore. Everything that happened to her from this day onward lay in Madison’s hands – her powers were at her own disposal, and they didn’t belong to the coven, to the school, not even to that bitch Fiona. Nobody could put Kyle back together, just as nobody could heal her broken sense of sisterhood for this place, for Zoe. That was something she’d learned, finally. Her own selfishness had been a saving grace. Light enough to hoist when you were nearly out of air and heavy enough to hold her down, the way no grave ever could. 

She collapsed beside the bed, coughing violently, once the deed was done. But it was a deed she’d managed to complete. And one no jury in the world would convict her for it.

 

***

She needed a cigarette afterward. 

And she had one, in peace, out on the balcony, with the Southern air caressing her skin and the scent of magnolias mixing up headily with her tobacco smoke. This gave Madison time to think out what she’d say to Cordelia and the others. She wondered what they would do when they noticed Kyle was missing; if the bruises on her throat would heal or be a permanent marker of her actions, of the monster’s badly-formed choices.

She hid the body while Zoe and Queenie were busy trying to match items downstairs. Madison cracked a nail dragging him down the hall, and she privately vowed to wreak her vengeance on them all…once she found some glue. The part of her that was trained to be permanently camera-ready shuddered at the notion of arriving on the scene with even a hair out of place. 

She mentally calculated the time and distance. They would miss her soon. Eventually they’d ask each other where she went, and then Zoe would wonder what had happened to Kyle – they’d come looking. After all, their little shitshow was nothing without Madison, who was the real star here – THE star, the queen of the ball, the only one among them who’d shown enough promise to eclipse Fiona. Eventually she’d answer them, give them a star’s entrance, a little glimmer and glamour and a sway of her hips. But the most important part now was dragging the body, getting as little blood on her hands as possible, seeming innocent and sweet.

Finally, she dragged him off to a blind spot between the house and the potter’s shed. The smell of rotting flesh mixed with herbs, turning Madison’s stomach, but her determination didn’t waver. Briefly, she considered burning his remains; it seems cleaner but not quicker –and it would probably smell worse than the weird herb/rotting meat combo already wafting over the scent of the nearby tuberoses. The only immediate thought she had was that she needed to find a shovel, dig a hole, clean the shovel, and change her clothing. The shed helped her with the former but the latter would be a problem. An old spell echoed to life in the recesses of her mind; under her insistent chanting the shovel twitched to life, rising to work, letting it part the dirt for her. 

Madison leaned against the shed, lit up another cigarette, and waited for the earth to belch up its secrets. Everything else – the test, even the Supremehood – would take care of itself.

*** 

“It’s true what they say. You can’t get good free help these days.” She rolled her eyes at the shovel as it dropped to her feet. The thing had died and fallen useless to her toes having dug nothing more than a shallow pit in the early. The hole was, at least, big enough for her to kick Kyle into it, and she did so with all of the dull-eyed numbness she felt. 

But Kyle would not enter into his last goodnight whole, instead splattering into a pile of writhing worms the second she shoved him over the edge of the crater, some spilling over onto her designer shoes, some dripping into the hole itself.

A shriek died in the back of Madison’s throat; she kicked at the rest of his trunk, his limbs, until Kyle rolled with a wet thud into the crevice she’d created. Stomping worms as she went, Madison realized Misty’s old stitches had come loose; maybe this would help her in the long run. Even his head had detached.

His head. She rested her shoe upon it. “You’re starting to piss me off, pretty boy.”

She raised an eyebrow and glanced at the last appendage. Cringing, she picked it up by the roots of its hair.

“Come on. Let’s go have some fun.”

Maybe she could find something useful for him to do after all. Maybe…

 

*** 

 

Cordelia started in on her the very second Madison sashayed through the kitchen door, carrying something in an old bowling bag that had been found discarded in the shed. The woman called Madison’s name, her voice tremulous. 

“What’s next?” Madison asked. Her eyes darted from Queenie’s face to Zoe’s pinched expression. She rolled her eyes at their silence and headed into the drawing room.

“MADISON,” repeated Cordelia, chasing her down the marble foyer as Madison burst into the drawing room. “Where have you been? We’ve been looking for you – it’s your turn to retry the….” 

Cordelia trailed off on Zoe’s heartrending shriek. Madison had marched right over to her, unzipping the bag and rolling whatever had been within it onto her lap. “What did you do?” Cordelia shouted, frantically groping for Madison, but the girl had moved confidently forward, letting Zoe see what her self-centeredness has wrought.

“By the way,” Madison purred,her voice a threat and a promise in the back of Zoe’s aching head. “You’re next, princess.”

She then dropped the bag that had contained Kyle’s head onto the table and sashayed upstairs, determined to rest and then try again to gain Supremehood.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to my betas for catching my tense switches and putting a stop to them, among other things.


End file.
